Keep Singing in the Cellar

I will sing of thy steadfast love, O LORD, for ever; with my mouth I will proclaim thy faithfulness to all generations.

---Psalm 89:1

These uncertain times we live in feel like when my dad used to ask me to go down in the basement alone to do chores. It was always a dark descent even when the lights were on ...even in the daytime. I'd fight him and pitch a fit..but he'd still ask me to go. My memory plays back the hollow sound of the wooden steps with each click of my shoes on the way down. I can still hear it and feel the fear.

It's almost as if the Lord has resuscitated this memory to help me remember the faith of a child and how He strengthened me to do what I was asked even though I was afraid.

We need to know how to courageously continue on in our faith even when it appears the bottom is falling our of our country and the church.

Dad...I can't go down there.

How will you know if something happens to me?

He would say,

I'll be right here in the kitchen.

But I can't see you.

Yes...but----

I know where you are.

And if you'd like...you can sing.

When you stop singing, I'll know something's wrong.

So. I'd go down the steps...singing all the way and do you know I never tried to test him by stopping. I just trusted he could hear me.

I'd do the laundry, soak the codfish, put the games away.....and sing. He even reminded me that singing was praying twice.

That's how I survived in that dark basement;

Singing, praying and trusting that my father knew exactly where I was; and that he could hear me.

If I say, "Let only darkness cover me, and the light about me be night,"

even the darkness is not dark to thee, the night is bright as the day; for darkness is as light with thee.

---Psalm 139:11-12

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